Social networking is a recent phenomenon that has been growing rapidly in the consumer electronics market. This rapid growth is fueled by the large number of household PCs with high speed internet, as well as growing number of smart mobile devices. For many, posting a picture, a message or a blog, or receiving a notification of a social networking group has become a norm and part of everyday communications. The emergence of social media and short message service (SMS) or multimedia messaging service (MMS) are now fueling a new generation of experience across PCs, mobile and landline phones.
However, the TV remains noticeably absent from social networking. To “chat” about video programming being watched, subscribers would have use their PC or mobile phone to join an online community of other PC users (e.g. via a chat room or instant messaging), or participate in one-to-one voice or text messaging using their mobile phone. In the event that the user wanted to share comments and make observations about a TV show with a group of friends, they would all have to bring their computer or mobile phone, perhaps running a social networking application, alongside the TV. This behavior of watching the TV and computer or mobile phone screen simultaneously is awkwardly disjointed.
Among the forms of social messaging with personal electronic devices now common in the market are IM (instant messaging) and text messaging, transmitted by one mobile phone to another, and also internet or web-based chat sessions, in which plural users can log into a chat room and type their text messages, carrying on something like a written group discussion. Several protocols such as MMS (multimedia messaging service) and SMS enable reliable transmission of short messages in different formats. Internet chat rooms may be organized about a theme, about specific subject matter, or otherwise, and often serve as a locus for exchange of information or advice. A chat room may also simply constitute a virtual space for ‘hanging out’ with on-line friends.
The foregoing social messaging systems allow users to express themselves either to one other person (in the case of mobile phone messaging), or to several other people. In the latter case, the others may be strangers, or persons known only as internet personae through the communications they have chosen to post on the web. In addition certain software applications allow a user to see whether a selected list of friends who are also running the software, happen to be on-line, and, if so, to exchange messages.
All these forms of social messaging are quite popular, but each has certain limitations as noted above. It would therefore be desirable to provide a social communication system of greater richness.